Martian ice melt is not a sign of climate change

Abstract

Global warming isn't happening on Mars, so face up to it on Earth. That's the conclusion of an analysis of the Red Planet's melting polar ice cap, which shows that Swiss-cheese-like pits forming in the ice are part of a natural cycle, not unusual warming. Shane Byrne at the University of Arizona and his colleagues say the pit size changes naturally every 100 years or so. He used images of the south pole from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to track changes in the pits over four Martian years and create a model of their formation. This showed that thin carbon dioxide ice starts out smooth, but as gas freezes onto it, some places end up lumpier. The areas with the highest slopes absorb more sunlight eventually melting to create the pits.